Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) (4 page)

More snow was on its way
and with it would come a further drop in temperature, partially because of the presence of a huge cold front and partially because of the winds that would accompany it.

He added widespread freezing fog to his glum forecast.

Now the Allied Armies would have to battle the elements, as well as the Russians.

              The three men sat quietly, well apart from all the others, mainly wounded soldiers and furlough men waiting for the arrival of their ride home.

The threesome drew a number of looks, as much for their
disparate proportions as the fact that they were clearly combat veterans who had been through some sort of hell on earth, which, in truth, they had.

A cigarette moved steadily between the smallest man, seated on the left end of the barrier that the three had made their personal seat, travelling to the man seated in the middle
, and back.

On the end
, nearest what had been decided had once been an Opel Blitz lorry, sat the largest of the men. He did not smoke, but shared the canteen doing steady business on all three sets of lips.

A
brazier, constructed by the airfield guards for their own comfort, produced both heat and smoke, warming bodies and stinging eyes.

The steady drone of an approaching aircraft broke into their comfortable silence and three sets of eyes were suddenly wide open and scanning the sky for threats.

An RAF transport aircraft descended through the gently falling snow, landing harder than the passengers or the pilot wished for.

A door flew open on the temporary structure that was presently the operations centre for the small field, yielding a weasely faced British MP Captain, whose voice broke the silence as he shouted the waiting passengers into some sort of order.

The moment had come, one the three had simply ignored.

They stood as one and hands were extended.

Bluebear ignored both hands and swept his two friends up in his massive arms, crushing them close.

From under his left armpit came an unmistakeable voice.

“Oi Vay Chief! Leave me shome breath already!”

With a laugh,
BlueBear tightened his grip on Rosenberg and then released both men.

The diminutive Jew
drew air into his recently crushed chest and proffered his favourite suggestion one more time.

“
You shure you don’t wanna batman like the Limeysh do? You’d be doin’ me a favour, Chief.”

The Cherokee looked the small man up and down, feigning disdain.

“No pets allowed on the aircraft.”

H
ässler laughed, as much at Rosenberg’s inability to immediately respond as at the humour itself.

Rosenberg rallied.

“And fucking shquaws ride on the roof!”

Their
intimacy was broken as the MP Captain appeared magically in their midst, his clipboard held firmly as a pencil hovered expectantly.

“
Names.”

“
Rita Hayworth, Hedy Lamarr, Betty Grab...”

The British MP poked Rosenberg in the chest with the clipboard.

“Don’t try to be funny with me, Yank.”

“
You asked for namesh, you got namesh, wishe-assh.”

The clipboard seemed to develop a mind of its own, firstly moving back, almost as if to strike the recently promoted Jewish Sergeant.
Secondly, it jerked upwards as it left the British officer’s grasp, snatched away in the mighty paw of a Cherokee who was not going to watch his friend messed with by the Limeys.

“
My name’s BlueBear.... Lieutenant BlueBear... I’m on the list... here, Captain.”

A strange silence followed.

One in which the MP was clearly assessing his next move.

O
ne in which he realised the precariousness of his position.

O
ne in which he decided that valiant retreat was the order of the day.

“
Well, hurry up and get yourselves on the ‘plane. The weather’s going to close in shortly and there won’t be any more flights for some time.”

This time the three shook hands in silence,
exchanging smiles and nods, everything having been said on the journey to the airfield.

BlueBear
mounted the steps to the DC3 and turned to wave at his two friends.

The wave was returned and then they went their separate ways.

[Charley
BlueBear was being flown back to the States to receive his Medal of Honor from the hands of President Truman. As the first Native American to be honoured in the new war, the propaganda value was immense and, as with others before him, BlueBear was to be used to raise the capital with which to grease the wheels of war.]

A week had passed and passed quickly.

There was plenty of work in which to immerse a troubled mind and Nazarbayeva had committed herself fully to the new challenge ahead.
The pain of the wound had eased and her recovery was assured.

Some minor irritations had surfaced, men who had felt they were more qualified than the woman who had pulled the trigger on Pekunin
, men who started agitating, whispering, and plotting behind the scenes.

Nazarbayeva had been put in her new position by events
, that was clearly the case, and some wondered whether her obvious ambition either had engineered those events or pushed her into precipitous action. After all, there was no evidence against Old Pekunin.

‘
Was there?’

On Stalin
’s personal order or, more likely on Beria’s suggestion, NKVD General Dustov had remained at hand, supported by a contingent of his troops.

The whispering and plotting gradually died away, as did the presence of
the two senior GRU officers mainly responsible for it, neither of whom welcomed their transfers to other distant and much cooler climes.

Poboshkin, newly promoted to Lieu
tenant Colonel, stood smartly as GRU Major General Tatiana Nazarbayeva opened the repaired office door, her work for the night complete.

“
Good night, Comrade General.”

She smiled a weary smile to her loyal aide.

“And to you, Comrade Poboshkin. I wish you every success. Safe journey tomorrow.”

Nazarbayeva strode over the crisp snow, her thoughts mainly on the special mission that she had entrusted to her Aide.

Poboshkin reseated himself, anxious to keep on top of the fine details of his first presentation to the GKO, intended for Moscow the following Sunday. But his thoughts also strayed to the mission he had been given by his new General, the reason he was returning to the seat of power two days earlier than needed, a mission that was intended to delve into certain aspects of the life and death of the dearly departed GRU Colonel General Roman Samuilovich Pekunin.

In her private quarters, Nazarbayeva sat with a glass of water and completed the
now ritual examination of her breast wound.

Satisfied with the healing process, she settled into the leather chair and again commenced the mental exercise that tried to make sense of the past week. Part of that process was to
attempt to solve the puzzle box that Pekunin had wanted her to have but, for now, its secrets remained hidden.

She recalled his words.

‘It is my personal gift to you. Use it how you wish. Believe it and believe nothing else.’

Thus
far, it had denied her entry, its inner workings conceived by the most cunning of minds.

She had felt almost taunted by its presence; so close but yet the contents were so far from her reach.

At times, her mind had strayed to other options. She had contemplated using her boot as a hammer and once had even picked up the grenade she had found by the river bank that summer’s day, thinking to use its metal case to break the box open.

She always resisted the temptation of force, although the defiance of the twelve centimetre square box pushed her to the limit.

‘Who knows what old Pekunin put inside that could be broken?’

But tonight, as she relaxed in her chair, a visual memory stirred, one that had remained hidden or forgotten, perhaps
obscured by the gravity of the conversation that took place at the time.

‘Mudaks! You old devil!’

Clear as day, the image came. As he talke, Pekunin had shown her the first stages; very deliberately.

The simple box had few markings and, in any case, each side was the mirror of the others.

Her mind’s eye recalled the moment, seeing the two thumbs on the leading edge, easing one of the sides across a few millimetres.

Taking up the box, Nazarbayeva pressed and found nothing but resistance. She tried each facet in turn, the seventh attempt yielding some movement.

Her memory was hazy and the image now indistinct, so she worked the box, pressing in all directions without reward.

‘
Think, woman, think!’

The slightest scuff on the wood shouted at her, its presence almost imperceptible but, in itself, a pointer to stage two.

Pressing down and right, the next section moved to one side with ease.

The two stages together brought the third part of the unlocking process to mind and she found the correct panel first time.

Now she was on her own, without Pekunin’s hand to guide her, but her mind was equal to the logic of the box and the fourth stage fell quickly to her assault.

Within ten
minutes, the box had yielded a small piece of paper.

The words written on it were simple.

‘My loyal Tatiana, I am sorry to burden you. Do what is right for the Rodina and remember that your duty lies to her above all other things, come what may. Please accept my copy of ‘The State and the Revolution’ as a memento. With affection, Roman.’

Written at a different angle, in a different pen and in a seemingly different hand, almost as if the shred had been
ripped from another larger piece, were apparently unconnected words.

‘
Ref C5-C dated 130644 ref Theft of utensils from 22nd Army Stores’

The note was directing her towards an old GRU file.

Ten minutes later, Poboshkin was surprised to see his boss back in the headquarters.

“
Relax, Comrade Poboshkin.”

“
May I assist you, Comrade General?”

“
Not necessary, Comrade. I just want to pick up an old file that I need to remind myself of. I’m still capable of opening a filing cabinet by myself.”

Her smile disarmed him but he still rallied.

“Perhaps I can get a clerk to fetch it for you, Comrade General?”

“
No, leave them to their rest. It’s no problem.”

To mark the end of the exchange
, Nazarbayeva moved off quickly towards the archives.

Given the age of the file, she surprised herself by finding it quickly, strolling past Poboshkin no more than four minutes after she had walked away.

“Tea, Comrade General?”

“
Excellent idea. I shall be in my office, Comrade.”

The file was face down on the desk when the orderly brought Tatiana her drink, his presence bar
ely acknowledged by Nazarbayeva, who was sat holding a first edition of ‘The State and the Revolution’, one of Lenin’s most influential works, in one hand, and the photograph it had relinquished in the other.

The family pictured in it needed no introduction as she had seen a similar larger print on Pekunin
’s desk day in, day out; it was the old General’s son and his family.

Finally alone, she explored the folder and found efficient reporting of a GRU investigation into the thefts from 22nd Army Central Stores. The culprits were probably long dead, transferred to penal mine clearing units.

Contained within the official paperwork were a few sheets of paper with meaningless sequences of letters and numbers, all in the same hand, a hand she didn’t recognise but instinctively knew to be Pekunin’s disguised.

Taking a pencil and a fresh sheet of paper, Nazarbayeva selected the first document,
arranged Pekunin’s literary bequest in front of her and, with a deep breath to calm her growing worries, opened the book on the page where she had found the photograph and commenced decoding.